EPT![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/XWlRUtQ.png)
"It's that bad." - Chester Bennington, RIP
Spoilers Ahead, Lads: If you haven't seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi, I would advise you not to pay money to do so. Also, if somehow you've made it this far without spoilers, then I'm going to tell you right now that I'm going to spoil the movie. Kind of. It's already spoiled by Disney.
Where do you start with a movie like this? I wrote a blog some months ago expressing frustration that Disney has no long-term plan for the franchise, and are just making it up as they go, kind of like JJ Abrams did with Lost. My long-standing hypothesis on Lost is that there was never an end-goal for the story. However, the premise of the show was good, and the characters were good, so the show was wildly successful. It was like Game Of Thrones, just in the 2000s. The big difference, obviously, is that GOTR is based on a series of books, and so the story has a structure already in place. Lost did not have a story in place (as I allege) and so it was effectively going nowhere. Therefore, nothing can be done with the story, and therefore, no satisfactory ending could come about. But the show needed an ending. It couldn't just turn into Gilligan's Island and expect to be taken seriously. Plus, the fans wanted to know what was going on.
The comparison to Lost is not far off, except that Lost had a short-term mass appeal to it, whereas Star Wars has like, long-term niche-appeal to it. I feel like one of the strategies to marketing the new franchise was to grow the audience away from the nerd-niche, and make Star Wars more 'mainstream'. That sounds pretty crazy, considering how popular the series is already, but Disney bought the franchise for approximately 4 BILLION dollars. They had to make that money back. If we lay out some numbers here:
The Force Awakens - 306 million dollars to make (gross)
The Last Jedi - 200 million dollars to make
That's about 500 million. Usually, promotion costs as least as much as the film to produce, so then you're looking at the price tag being the 4 billion to buy Lucasfilm, and another 1 billion to make and promote.
So far in, sales, TFA has made 2 billion dollars, and TLJ has made 1.3 billion, which means they're still in the hole by 2.7 billion dollars. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MERCH SALES, YOU AXE?
Bad
Now, there are over 9,000 videos on Youtube dot com and also Vimeo that explain why they didn't like TLJ. Some take the "middle road" and say "I liked this but didn't like this" and point out lots of pros and cons. A big pro for me was when Chewie is flying the Millennium Falcon and slaps a porg off the dashboard. A big con for me was this movie. I mentioned before that I thought Disney had absolutely fucked the whole franchise in the ass by bringing a second director in to write/direct the second part of a three-part trilogy. Imagine if you were a Lord of The Rings fan, but Peter Jackson could only direct the first and third movies, but for some reason the studio gave the second movie to Lars Von Trier. Actually, that might be pretty cool. So, let's just say Michael Bay.
I just thought
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/gtdnmwW.png)
huh?
Some time earlier, when presented with evidence that Kathleen Kennedy said the trilogy was going to have some kind of direction, Rian Johnson responded with this:
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/fFygM4j.png)
So there was no plan, hm? I think someone may have been lyingggg...
The way Johnson has treated the fans has been ridiculous and Paul Feig-esque.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/wyeBIHv.jpg)
rly tho?
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/DsFj8D2.png)
Get savaged on, fans who paid money to see this movie.
So, from what I gather, there was a plan (which may have been worse than what Rian Johnson did; we may never know) and then Rian Johnson ignored that plan, then made this nonsense movie, and when it got criticized, Johnson and his Hollywood pals mocked the fans and called them a bunch of crybabies. Maybe this movie is a metaphor for there being a plan, and Rian Johnson is saying he's like Poe Dameron, and is trying to fuck up the true plan with his own. But that's just a theory... a GAME theory.
Now, I've heard that the fans are "impossible" to please. Apparently, TFA was too similar to the original trilogy and the TLJ was too dissimilar. Lmao, what a bunch of crybaby nerds, amirite? Let's insult them and call them neckbeards. No, you fools! If you get into the bath-tub, the water can be way too cold, and also, it can be scalding hot. An actor can under-act and deliver flat dialogue and emotionless expressions, but an actor can also over-act and look like an insane person. So just because TFA was too similar to the original trilogy doesn't absolve Rian Johnson of any criticism. He would still have a write a story that works in the context of a trilogy structure.
Let's talk about some shit:
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Supreme Leader Snoke - Would the new trilogy have a new super-powerful villain who pulls the strings behind the scenes who is a menace to the galaxy, or are we going to get a comic-book villain who acts like a dumbass? TFA suggested we'd get the first one. Who is this motherfucker? Han Solo knows who he is. Luke Skywalker knows who he is. Leia knows who he is. Ben Solo knows who he is. How did he meet Ben Solo? Where did he come from? WELL THE ANSWER IS "FUCK YOU".
It's a really bad story-telling (or lack of) element that people heavily criticized the prequels for. Darth Maul was introduced, and you thought he was going to be some bad-ass who would have a role through the prequel trilogy. No, though. The movies don't explain who he is or where he came from, which I guess is kinda okay. He's just there to be a bad guy and fight the good guys, and that's what he does. Then he gets cut in half with a lightsaber.
Jengo Fett appears in the second prequel film as a major villain, but also suffers the same fate as Darth Maul: gets no backstory, has no motivation for joining the Separatists, then he gets his head cut off by a lightsaber.
Count Dooku is slightly more important, because he is the charismatic figurehead at the helm of the Separatist Movement, and even uses the force to battle Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Anakin, and so, you kinda assume he's going to be a major villain in Revenge of The Sith that the good guys have to fight at the end of the movie. But nope, he just gets his head cut off by a lightsaber. We never learn when he joined Darth Sidious as a Sith, or how he met Nute Gunray, or anything. Even in the title crawl, he is said to be "mysterious", and this leads the viewer to believe there will be some revelation about him that is a major plot point. Instead, he just is introduced, then killed off.
The thing about Snoke is that he is the catalyst for the entirety of the events in the new trilogy. There would be no "war" if hadn't started a war. Ben Solo wouldn't have had a mentor to lead him to the dark side. Naturally, fans speculated who Snoke might be, since JJ Abrams clearly had an idea, but Rian Johnson just goes "Your Snoke theory sucks" while simultaneously not shedding any light on Snoke's role. I don't even need to know his "origin story". I just want to know who the fuck he is and what his goal is.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/OhOJx2O.jpg)
Rey - Who is Rey? Nobody knows. Not even Poe Dameron knows who she is. They "meet" at the end of the movie, despite them being at the same Resistance base at the end of TFA. So while The Empire Strikes Back introduced romance into Star Wars, Rey doesn't get any romance. I know Han Solo wanted to bang her because he went for decades with just him and Chewbacca, then suddenly wanted to hire her as a crew member, probably to bypass his compressor, if you know what I mean. Like Snoke, Rey gets no story despite being the main fucking character of the movie. I don't think I'd mind TFA giving her so little backstory if TLJ filled some of those gaps, if you know what I mean.
I don't even care that much about her Mary Sue-ish stuff. Like, when you're hanging out on Jakku alone, you have a lot of spare time, and she probably just was fucking around and found about the force by accident, but didn't know what it was. Then Han could tell her "The Force is a thing" and she'd put two and two together and go "Oh, so I was using the force this whole time. Cool beans." but since she received no backstory, we don't know anything about her, and we're 2/3rds through this goddamn series already. At one point, Kylo Ren turns to the camera, looks directly into it and says "Rey has no backstory. Her parents are nobody. All your fan theories suck."
A very cool direction the movie could've gone would've been Rey turning to the dark side. Or maybe Kylo turning to the light side. Both really interesting story arcs that could lead into the third movie, but nah. And Snoke doesn't even learn any lessons from Emperor Palpatine. Did he even meet Emperor Palpatine? Perhaps him and Palpatine were enemies, and once Palpatine died, Snoke sensed it and took over his former enemy's place. But nah.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/RMyUsQx.jpg)
Rose x Finn - I like Rose. Except when she rammed Finn. I think everyone else covered that in the one million+ videos criticizing this movie. She rammed him so hard. But everyone who watches this movie is like "Why is nobody mourning the death of Han?" and it's because Rian Johnson wanted to dedicate the maximum amount of screen time to horse-dogs possible. But Rose also lost someone: her sister was killed in battle, and she doesn't even shed a tear. She could've been a cool character if her and Finn did something bad-ass, like storming the bridge to Snoke's dreadnought or something. But nah. Rian Johnson constantly goes "SIKE." and then flips the script throughout the movie. Finn and Rose saving the day? Nah. They just get captured. Then Finn gets to redeem himself, and Rose rams him really, really hard. A lot of people think this was stupid, but it makes sense since Rose loves Finn. However, does Finn love Rose? I don't think that half of the relationship was ever established. It's a weird one-way relationship where Rose just is enamored with Finn and then mouth-rapes him after ramming him without his consent. Gross!
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Holdo - Remember the mom from Jurassic Park? She's back in this new science-fiction space-opera as The Worst Character Ever Written. Everything she does is absolutely wrong. This whole movie is absolute nonsense because of her. Like every other character, she's woefully underwritten, and it's Johnson's way of confusing the audience. You're supposed to hate her and think she's a villain, so that Rian Johnson can jebait you and make her good. Except everyone still hates her, and when she kills herself, you're like "Thank The Force she's dead." Also, a dreadnought the size of Snoke's would have a deflector shield that would be able to resist the impact of another ship.
If you're writing a script to a weird mind-bending movie, confusing the audience is okay. In fact, confusing the audience is often mistaken for 'genius writing'. Star Wars, however, is usually pretty straightforward... except when George Lucas needs to retroactively make Darth Vader Luke's father and has to make Obi-Wan's force-ghost show up to retcon A New Hope a little bit. But there's a reason for that. Lucas didn't know that the first movie would ever be so well-received, and never planned to go past that one film. Lo and behold, it happened, and the story needed an arc of redemption.
For a script like TLJ, there is no arc. Also, unlike George Lucas, Disney knew for absolute certain that if the doomsday meteor didn't hit, there would be three new Star Wars films. That's why stuff like Holdo being the most underwritten and confusing character is so frustrating. At least with Jar-Jar Binx, you know why he's in the prequels, which is to provide humor to balance out the otherwise overly-dry and serious movie. Now, Jar-Jar just comes off as annoying to most people, and doesn't really work, but people know what the intention was. For Holdo, nobody knows what the intention was. She's just so weird that people don't know what to make of her, and so tons of critics of the movie were left with an open interpretation of her. That's not good, because she's a over-controlling bitch for most of the movie, has purple hair, and is in the right whereas Poe is in the wrong for going against her. That suggests to a lot of people that she was inserted into the movie as a "Social Justice" character who in the script to show that women shouldn't be questioned because they can have awesome secret plans.
We don't know, because Holdo isn't really well-written at all, and as most of the people who saw the movie have pointed out, she really should've told Poe Dameron the fucking plan.
If she's meant to be an empowering figure for women, then tell me who she is, why she didn't tell Poe the plan, and then not kill her off in the same movie, because I don't feel very empowered right now.
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Leia - She looks at CP30 and says "Wipe that look off your face!" and I guess it's supposed to be funny, but made me cringe like I just put a sour-drop lemon candy in my mouth. I don't care about all the other bullshit like her surviving floating in space, flying to her ship, going through the airlock, being in a coma for the whole movie, etc. Just the fact that she told a robot that she's known her whole life to change his facial expression when she knows that's not possible, and being serious about it, makes me want to punch the side of a barn.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/ijm2IKP.jpg)
Jedi Texts - At no point in any Star Wars movie (maybe the Ewok movies) are there books. Yet, there they are, the only books in the galaxy. Besides being a total anomaly in the context of the Star Wars universe, they shouldn't even exist. If Luke was fed up with the Jedi Order, he'd have already burned the books way before Rey got to the island. He would've said "Jedi stuff is shit!" and torched them. When Rey leaves the island, she takes the books with her, so when Yoda calls down lightning, does Yoda realize he's just nuked nothing? Sure, being one with the Force that is a part of everything, Yoda would fucking know this, but since Rian Johnson is bad at storytelling (yeah, I said it), Yoda just blows the fucking out of some random tree. Then, Yoda says something that no one should ever say in a Star Wars movie: "Page-turners, they were not." and the reason for this is a basic principle of world-building. If you want to create a universe that is completely different from our own, you can't have the people use some of the same colloquialisms that we use in the real world. That doesn't mean the language is going to be different, but some of the expressions have to be changed. That's why you have phrases like "Nerf-herder" and "Bantha-fodder" being used in the original trilogy. That's why teenage boys in the Star Wars universe idea of fun is shooting up womp-rats and then going down to the Tosche Station to buy some power-converters.
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2-hour chase scene Imagine if a chase-scene went on for two hours. That's this whole movie. While every other Star Wars movie takes place over an expansive galaxy with many different locations (vistas, if you will) over the course of days, weeks, or maybe even months, this whole movie is a big ship chasing a little ship. Actually, the rebel cruiser is fucking huge, because you see it next to a medical frigate, which looks tiny next to it. That means the dreadnought is even huger.
The situation, to be blunt, is kind of stupid. The Resistance cruiser is actually faster than The First Order's dreadnaughts, and should be able to outrun them easily. Nevertheless, the The First Order stays on the cruiser the entire time. At no point, though, does anyone from The First Order go "Hey, let's send some TIE-fighters out to destroy it!" Now, I know logic isn't this movie's strong-suit, but we know that capital ships have on-board fighters, and we also know that The Resistance has no fighters left. I guess General Hux must've read a copy of the script.
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Are comparisons to original trilogy fair? - A big complaint among those who want to see new Star Wars material is that you can't keep recycling the same shit over and over. You have to see new things. I agree with that. My biggest gripe with TFA was the Starkiller Base. It shouldn't have even been in the movie. In TLJ, many people think it went way off-course, but in reality, a lot of the material is recycled sci-fi tropes, including stuff from the original trilogy, and the prequels. Everything has a little 'twist' on it, which is fine, but the story is very rushed in places where stuff needs to be explained (Like who Holdo is and why she's withholding information from Poe) and then explains way too much shit in other places where it's entirely unnecessary, like
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/OaVmQCC.jpg)
Canto Bight - Why is this in the movie?
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/yVz86b9.jpg)
The Knights of Ren - Oh boy, the TLJ is coming out and we'll probably find out the meaning of Kylo Ren's name and who the Knights of Ren are! But nah. Welcome to Canto Bight.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/9wrOJj7.png)
Bombs in space - I hear people complain about this all the time, but the bombs could have some kind of magnetic thing to pull them into their target. Not a huge deal. I just wonder why the bombers are so damn slow.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/N0K6sgm.jpg)
Chewbacca - Rey learns to become fully fluent in wookie-language in a matter of days, and translates Chewie's noises to Luke. Then again, she's a magical force-user, and probably used the force to learn all the languages.
Chewie's old. You'd expect his fur to be grey, unless he's using "Just For Wookies" hair conditioner. He also doesn't do much in this movie, besides kicking down a door, and then flying the Millennium Falcon at the end when Rey is manning (or wommaning) the guns, and takes out four TIE-fighters with one shot! If you don't believe me, go look at the Battle of Crait scene again where the salt-speeders(?) are getting rekt by TIE-fighters and then Rey Ex Machina saves them sort of.
I firmly believe that Chewie should've eaten that porg-on-a-stick right in front of the live porg. I mean, it was already dead and cooked. I was like "Really, movie?", and so I was really happy when later on, Chewie uses his brutal strength to completely slap the shit out of a porg that is screeching like a lunatic.
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Luke Skywalker - Luke is the best character in the movie. A lot of people like Kylo Ren, as do I, but my favorite is Luke. Too bad he fucking dies. So now Han's dead, Luke's dead, and Leia is alive. Except Leia is dead irl. It's like Rian Johnson was like "How can I fuck this up for JJ? I know! Besides having to fill in all the information that I left out from my script, he also has to kill Leia off-screen. Brilliant!"
Many people, including Mark Hamill himself, didn't like Luke being bitter and anti-force. I did. I feel like Rian Johnson almost got this right. Almost. Allow me to explain: a lot can happen in 30 years. An optimist can turn into a pessimist. The blight of failure can turn a hero into a secluded old man. Luke is old, cranky, and doesn't want to have anything to do with the galactic war. He's done with that shit. He spent 30 years trying to make things right, and while he did blow up a Death Star, his latest foray into the spreading of Jedi arts led to things getting worse, and now his nephew is trying to take over the galaxy.
Where Johnson gets things wrong is contradicting TFA's Luke. If Luke went to the Jedi island to die, why did he make a map of how to get to him and place it in R2D2? In TFA, the story was told like he was hiding for some reason. In TLJ, he doesn't want to be found. Yet he made a map to himself, why? Additionally, Rey's mission was to go find Luke and bring him back to Leia. There was never any discussion about being trained. In the original trilogy, Luke goes to Dagobah with the intent of being taught how to use the force. In the new trilogy, Rey goes to Ahch-To (Bless you) not with the intent of any kind of training. For some reason, though, Luke agrees to 'train her'. Why? She already knows how to use the force. Luke from the original trilogy knew a few things, like how to force-lasso his lightsaber out of the snow, but didn't know much beyond that. Rey is already as powerful as Luke was in Return of The Jedi.
But, whatever, right? I still liked Luke Skywalker because Matt Hamill knows how to act, and he plays his part very well. Despite all the flaws in the logic of him training Rey, it's the part of the movie that people wanted more of, and less Canto Bight. Welcome to Canto Bight, where you get immediately imprisoned without a trial for parking violations.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/gwFh1fY.jpg)
Oh boy, what's next? The Force Awakens left fans with a lot of questions, and excitement to see the next movie. People were genuinely excited to see Luke and Rey hang out, find out who Snoke is, find out if Rey and Finn fall in love, find out if Finn and Poe fall in love, learn about who Rey is, learn who the Knights of Ren are, et cetera. Nobody wanted horse-dogs. The thing that made The Last Jedi exciting was to see a continuation of the film that they liked, but were left questioning. Whether or not the unanswered stuff in TFA would hold up would depend on the answers they got in TLJ. But no, you get horse-dogs and Vice-Admiral Purple Hair. Why is her hair purple, anyway? Is that its natural color? Did she dye it? She looked more like a Hunger Games character than a Star Wars character. Anyyyyywayyyy, TFA did a good thing, which was that it left fans hungry for moar. It's a bad sign when your movie ends and the fans are like "How is JJ Abrams going to salvage the trilogy?" and when your only hope is JJ Abrams, you're basically fucked.
All in all, Rian Johnson did a pretty good job on The Last Jedi, and I was impressed by the visuals and the storytelling elements that make you think about how we view the world around us. I'm just kidding of course, the movie sucked, and he did a very bad job. I hope he goes to sleep at night and has dreams about making a good Star Wars movie, but then the script falls into a fire before he can shoot the movie. It would be a repeating dream that he has over and over again, always ending with a crowd of people screaming at him that he ruined Star Wars. He then goes to a therapist who tells him that the only way to overcome his subconscious demons is to place himself into a large garbage dumpster and repeat to himself "I belong here." over and over.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/O8ZnQNk.jpg)
